THE TWINS – RIVERLANDS

"Magic is not what the realm believe it to be." Jon Stark said, standing on the bank of The Trident as the bodies floated by. Their horrid, bloated corpses bobbed beneath the stained surface, dragged inevitably toward the sea – hundreds of miles away and straight into the jaws of the Drowned God. Jon could feel their presence – the dead drifting in oblivion and the gods that moved unseen through the world. "Ignoring magic will not make it go away. It is woven into the air we breathe and the oceans lapping at our ships. Magic is what brings the Summer rains and sets the frosts in Winter."

Jon's face, ashen, had cracked and crystallized. Tiny purple scars were etched deep at the edges of his eyes making his appear a frightening shade of blue that slowly paled. He was changed, irrevocably, every time he dipped below the surface of life.

Jaqen was wary of him but in equal measured awed. "And magic is what brought you back," he agreed. "You are neither living nor dead. These walking corpses in the North beyond your ice wall... Is this same magic what holds their bones together?"

"A vile breed of it, yes..." Jon replied. "As the Braavosi like to remind the world, in truth it is all the same. You may hate one side of my blood," he added, turning, "but I doubt you wish to join your god so soon and will away this world. Not if you had seen what I have."

Jaqen was struggling. His entire fabric of reality had unravelled and now he was trying to piece it back together. "These people, what happened to them?" He asked, of the bodies in the river.

"I cannot say for sure," Jon replied, "though it looks like the wolves came for them. I heard screams and gnashing jaws in the darkness. With all the death in the realm, the wolves have bred into packs in their thousands. With the snow is falling thick they have to come out of the forests to hunt. The people waiting to pass over the bridge at The Twins would not have stood a chance. There is nothing more fearsome than a frenzy of wolves. Tell me," Jon lifted his Valyrian blade menacingly, "why should I let you live?"

Jaqen did not draw his weapon. There was no point. You could not kill something that Death did not want. "A man has no intention of killing you," he replied. "He takes the will of his god seriously. The Faceless God wants you alive which also means that he wants what you want. I can help, Lord Stark..."

"How could you possibly help me?" Jon stretched out his fingers on his free hand. There were pains in them like chills, eating him from the inside.

"The silver queen..." Jaqen replied. "She knows me as a skilled fighter and loyal subject."

"More fool her."

"Perhaps but I can get you inside her court to be heard. Lend weight to your words."

"You'll kill her," Jon replied, "you said as much yourself. That does not serve me. I need the Targaryen Queen alive."

"A man has changed his purpose – he swears."

"And what value does a man's word have if it belongs to no one? Those eyes are not your own. You ask me to trust you from behind a murdered face."

That was not entirely true. Jaqen wore his own face.

"What a man wants is the key to knowing his soul," Jaqen reached for the sheath of a sword he had not yet touched. He unhooked the clasps and held the jewelled, Valyrian short sword in one hand, not yet drawn. Truth lay bare. "A man knows what others want. Secrets which he can offer as collateral. Protection from sleeping creatures that would do you harm."


THE BONEWAY – STORMLANDS

It was hardly a scratch in the stone. The Boneway was travelled regular but never with any love. It was a disaster of bare rock and collapsed valleys where parts of the mountain flanks had broken off and crumbled across the pass. Passages had to be cleared by hand leaving towering piles of rubble, threatening to fall again.

Some brave Dothraki rode their horses up over the obstructions, practising battle. They were tame, for the moment but their wild nature itched for the bloodshed they were promised.

The Queen's caravan was the largest convoy to cross the Stormlands since Robert's Rebellion and they were plagued by constant delays. Daenerys travelled at the front beside the custom made cage for the tiny dragon covered in layers of cloth. Darkstar hung at the edges, often riding up into the first level of the mountains to get a look at the road ahead in case there were surprise raiding parties in hiding. What he found instead were patches of scorched earth, recently burned or in the final stages of smouldering. The Queen's dragons had been hunting ahead of them…

"Anything?" Ser Jorah asked, as Darkstar's horse trotted down the uneven track.

"Nothing but bones..." He replied, amid the screeching cries of the Dothraki echoing through the valley. "This is a wasteland." And there was another storm gathering at their back. A light sheen of rain had already begun feeding hundreds of micro-falls that gushed off the surrounding mountains. "The palace you spoke of lies ahead. I could see the top of its ruin."

"So… It is still there..." Jorah breathed in relief, glancing at the Queen. She was out of earshot. "I was not convinced it would be standing after all this time."

"From what I saw, there is not much left." Darkstar warned. "I do not know what the Queen intends. Keep an eye on the East," he added. "Stonehelm is but a breath over our shoulder. The Swanns are loyal to the Baratheon reign and they have enough men to cause us issue while ever we remain on this narrow road, walled in by the mountains."

"I know that," Jorah assured the other man. "I've got men watching the valleys in case they cut us off from behind." He sighed and looked up toward the sky. The dragons were gone again.

"I did not see them either..." Darkstar followed the old knight's eye. "But they are here."


KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS

The feast dripped from the walls of the great hall. Every surface was alight with shimmering candles, caressed by a gentle current of air passing under the doors. The storms outside were kept at bay, shielded with Ironbark and stone – dampened with groups of musicians polluting the air with their sickening melodies. Queen Margaery despised them. Their cheer stoked her despair. She rested her hand where a child grew – forced her face into the appearance of joy but failed to stomach anything except water which she sipped possessively as though the goblet were the only thing tying her to life.

Her grandmother lurked at the edge of the room where the light was at its weakest. She orchestrated the room from there, nodding to her network of whisperers who managed the important guests in and out of the king's presence.

The Lannister whore, Cersei, paraded herself around the feast dressed in gold and red robes that dragged on the stone. She busied herself, harassing those members of the council that had shown support for the disgraced High Sparrow. With Pycell's mysterious death, their court was without a maester. Word was sent to the citadel but the position was coveted and infighting among the maesters led to a delay.

Loras looked better than he had in months. His hair was washed and hung over his ruined ear in soft, golden curls. His scar that corrupted his forehead had been masked with makeup taken from the acting troop who performed vile plays depicting Daenerys as a dragon fucked by horses and Lady Sansa as a headless wolf, flayed and left to rot. The true horror was reserved for the Sparrows which began as the centrepiece of the feast – baked sparrow and finished with sugared lemon tarts in the shape of sparrow eggs. It was a theme reinforced by the blood painting the door of the Red Keep. The blood of captured sparrows who lay in pieces at the bottom of Blackwater Bay.

King Tommen had taken command of the room, entertaining nobles that had lost faith during his brother's reign but were now inching back into the fold with their coin. He needed all of them to bring their armies into the city and help rid them of the insidious religious plague.

"I heard they set the Dragon Pit alight earlier," one of them had said, moving the King through the room. "Bonfires that reached to the roof. They are burning books from the city library. Pay records. Business contracts. When the ash settles tomorrow, there will be a fresh wash of economic chaos."

Tommen wondered how many nobles hoped to pretend that their records had been lost and beg their debts to be forgotten… If that was the price of loyalty, he was prepared to nod, smile and play along spending money he did not have. In the pit of debt there was little difference between a hundred feet and a thousand.

A body slammed into the main doors, interrupting the feast. The music stopped. The room turned and the king stood from his seat and strode into the centre of the room. A King's Guard crossed from the door, cutting through the guests.

"My Lord – a runner..."


King Tommen, his queen, Cersei and Olenna climbed the inner tower with a crowd of soldiers. The narrow stone opened onto a balcony overlooking the Sparrow-occupied quadrant of the city. Indeed, the Dragon Pit was alight with flames dancing against the night sky. They burned yellow, red and flickered into green, fed by more sinister items than books and sequestered rum.

The fire had escaped the pit and taken hold of the ancient merchant quarter – turned derelict housing area for the ultra religious. They could hear the screams from here but sympathy was hard to garner.

"So what?" Cersei shrugged, watching the fire. "They deserve the flames. Monsters."

"No – that is not what we are looking at, mother," Tommen replied. "Beside – the grain stores." The last silos in the city. After holding King's Landing to ransom for months, they were about to vanish in smoke. "The wind's blowing it South. Once it tears through those flames 'll be into the streets."

"Everything is wet from the storm," Olenna whispered. "The flames will stop."

"Not if they hit Flea Bottom. Hovels built with oil-soaked cloth... What is it now?" Tommen turned to another solider who was hoarse from climbing the stairs in full armour.

"They've strung up bodies along the Dragon Gate – the missing nobles you asked us to look for. They're dead. All of them. We found their homes ransacked."

"Money for the High Sparrow's coffers..." Olenna hissed. "He's getting desperate. We have to move on the Dragon Pit before this descends into a civil war. We need to call the Lannister army back before we lose control of the city."

"Jamie is holding Winterfell..." Cersei cut back. "We can't possibly relinquish our position. The Tyrell army is chaperoning grain. They could be diverted. They're west of the King's Wood. That is not far."

Olenna considered this. As much as she despised agreeing with Cersei it was a sensible request. "That could be arranged – with certain guarantees..."

"You want to bargain for the security of King's Landing?" Cersei eyed Olenna.

"No." She lifted her withered hands calmly. "Allow Loras to lead the Tyrell army into the city. Sulking around court is no good for him. Of all the people, he has as much cause as anyone to rage against the Sparrows. He'll deliver them on a plate."

Cersei could find no fault in this. "My King?" She looked to Tommen, who had both hands on the stone bannister, watching the fire burn. It boiled up, catching something else before exploding into a fresh wall of flame.

He hoped – prayed – that there were no stores of Wildfire beneath the streets. He wondered if his mother even cared? Maybe she was hoping the city would be engulfed in flame. Then she could rule the ashes, unchallenged. "Do it. Send Ser Loras out at once with a company to find the army and bring them in. And find someone to fight that fire."


Hours later, Olenna watched the flames dying down into a soft glow like embers. It was the rain rolling in from the Narrow Sea that saved them and nothing else. Loras was on his way and she had sent a raven ahead to the Commander of the Tyrell forces. The Sparrows were not of her creation but they were certainly useful.


DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY

The volcano shivered, rustling deep beneath the island. Daario hung over his throne, picking at the black glass with his nails. His dark hair fell in matted dreadlocks, some of which he wove feathers into – others shells. Inside the vaults of Dragonstone he'd found other treasures, many of which now hung around his neck including a string of black, misshapen pearls.

"I would wager," his man Lugg stated, leaning against the dragon mural beside the throne, "that you are the wealthiest man in Westeros."

"Most of this coin belongs to the Queen," Daario reminded him. "Anything we pilfer on the side is another matter." He kept an eye on Lugg. That creature was a true pirate. He half expected a knife to come out of the dark at the first sign of weakness. There was no chance of that yet. Daario had brought them from the East into the fertile killing grounds of the West. They loved him. "Don't worry. You'll get your share, Lugg."

"I am not worried, Captain. Just want to know when we're to set sail..."

"When we hear from the Spider." Daario insisted. "In the meantime, keep going through the vaults. I want an inventory of these tunnels. Stannis left a small fortune here but there is more than gold buried under this mountain. This is the heart of the Dragon empire."

The pirate pushed off the wall and bowed to Daario.


Heat radiated from the black rock. Lugg shuffled past the teams of pirates unloading weapons from the ships and took an inventory of the latest pit. Then he folded off into one of the side passages with a flaming torch in hand. Down here, instead of rock the walls were made of cut dragonglass, cleaved off with pieces of flint. They sliced straight through flesh and leather if you touched the edges and so Lugg carefully and slowly held his torch aloft. He was barricaded by blackness – in front and behind. He felt like he had wandered into the throat of Death.

Eventually the gravel underfoot turned warm. He could feel the heat through his boots. It reminded him of the hot sand on the beaches in the Basilisk Isles where the crystal water stretched forever and the putrid forests, clogged with rotten fruit, left a haze of alcohol in the air.

He slipped.

Lugg's hand hit the wall and sliced open. The torch fell – rushing to the ground in a roar of flame. Lugg gasped and cupped his bleeding hand against his chest, swearing. He tore fabric from his shirt and wrapped it around his palm, holding the wound shut as he retrieved the torch.

Ahead, the ground dropped away sharply. Only a few feet from where he stood, the passage ended and a chasm opened. The depths glowed. Unbearable heat lived within where the molten innards of the mountain pooled like blood in a wound. He inched as close as he could bear. Liquid steel, left churning where the salt crusted on the surface, bubbled up into mushrooms of flame the size of ships. Some cooled this way, left as black clouds of rock. Others burst and threw a fresh layer of glass at the walls.

Lugg backed away from the edge and clawed at his throat as the air burned down into his lungs. The flare of orange glow caught a set of scratch marks in the glass where dragons had slithered by, woken from their roosts beneath the mountain.


Tycho stormed up the docks, infuriated. His ship lay on its side, half-sunk with only its ropes holding the vessel above the waterline. His captain laughed and drank with the other pirates – now a pirate himself, robbing Tycho of passage off Dragonstone.

"There are no ships spare..." Daario made no effort to hide his amusement.

"You bribed my man to join your ranks!" He growled, slamming his fist on the table. The old pieces of war rattled and fell. Stannis' failed attempt at conquest.

"I did no such thing." Darrio assured him. "As I have no need of men. Look around. I have plenty but if your man wishes to join I'll not stop him."

"Euron!" Tycho hissed Daario's real name. "Have you turned mad!? It is in both our interests that I return to the Iron Bank or things will seem amiss. Any strange activity will alert Cersei and her empire that there are pieces in motion against her. Your dragon queen would not wish that. My partners in King's Landing do not wish that."

Daario let the edge of his lip curl into a smile. "Of course I intend to offer you passage back to the Iron Bank – after..."

"After what?"

"After you beg for it." Daario said darkly.

"The Bank of Braavos begs no one."

"The Bank of Braavos had its ceiling torn off by a pair of dragons. Its finances are drying up. The vaults of gold have all been lent out on bad investments and now those investments are about to go up in flame – quite literally – with no hope of retrieving that coin because the Lannisters already spent it. I'll take you home but you're going to get on your knees and beg me for a ship."

"You can't be serious..." Tycho paced around the table but then he realised that he was staring at an Ironborn sitting on the ancient throne of Westeros. In this moment, Daario had more power than anyone in the realm, including his beloved Silver Queen. It was neither here nor there to Daario whether Tycho returned to Braavos. His friends were in King's Landing. "You did sink my ship and turn my captain. I know you did." He fisted his hands but was smart enough to recognise that violence was not the answer when surrounded by an island of cut-throat criminals. "It doesn't matter whether you did it." He was muttering to himself, turning in circles. "What do you want, Euron? What do you actually want? It's not to be this – a puppet king on a stone throne."

Daario was unmoved by his words. He knew exactly what he was and what he wanted. The Bloodstone in his possession had shown him the future. "As I said. Kneel. Kneel as you made me do – then you may have a ship."


SHARP POINT – BLACKWATER BAY

"There it is..." Varys braved the light rain on deck. The enormous watchtower rose directly out of the cliffs with its eternal flame shining in the silky grey which the world had become – blurred somewhere between fog, mist and rain. The shoreline was black, like all of the shores approaching King's Landing.

"Are you certain we can trust Lord Emmon?" Tyrion asked, pulling his cloak over his head. Rain tumbled off the wool.

"He defied the Stormlords once for the Targarayens – he'll do it again. For the same reason." Varys paused. "Gold."

They sailed the Queen's fleet into the quiet waters behind Sharp Point and waited. The weather thickened around them, unable to settle.

"There it is!" Tyrion pointed through the fog to a small boat rowing out from the shore toward the fleet. An hour later, it pulled alongside their ship and they lowered the ropes. Lord Emmon himself ascended. "My Lord..." Tyrion was the first to approach and bow his head. "We have met before."

Lord Emmon eyed the imp suspiciously. As Master of Coin he'd blocked every request for funds. At least Baelish had been loose with the realm's gold. "I remember." Lord Emmon was a large man with an even larger wound that wept, open on his face. It was dressed with bandages that failed to mask the severity.

"What has happened, my Lord?" Varys asked, stepping closer. He made himself a living barrier between Tyrion and the Lord.

"Fucking Sparrows!" Emmon spat on the deck. "The Capital is overrun with them and their violence. My daughter," his voice shook in the depths of his register, "hangs from the walls of King's Landing without a head. I almost did not wait for your ships."

It would have been one man against an empire but Tyrion would have backed him all the same. He turned to Varys and exchanged whispers.

"Hold on your revenge," Varys implored the man. "Bottle up your rage and wait. The moment is nearly upon us where you will see those that have wronged you-"

"Disembowelled while they are still alive! When they are done you can feed them to your queen's dragons for all I care." Emmon was a man hot for war.

"Does our agreement stand?" Varys pried carefully.

"Do as you fucking will, long as you let me break their necks myself."

So it was sworn. "Your men will secure the King's Wood to the South of King's Landing and allow Queen Daenerys' army safe passage. Her fleet will remain here." Varys was interrupted by the distant cry of their dragon. It echoed over the water – a roar on the air that turned Lord Emmon's head. "Our guard..." Varys added, as Emmon leaned over the side, searching the skies for the dragon. "One of the Queen's dragons."

"I did not believe..." Emmon admitted. He knew the dragons were real but no one in Westeros had seen one for a hundred and fifty years. "Are you su-" He did not get to finish. Rising out of the mist, Rhaegal appeared first as a shadow, then as a vision of emerald, dripping water as he beat his wings. "My – by the Seven Gods..."

Rhaegal dribbled water over the ships as he circled above. They could hear his wings on the air and smell the remains of a whale carcass he'd been feasting on nearby.


Tyrion and Varys led a landing party leaving the Unsullied commander in charge of the fleet. Tyrion and Varys wandered the track around the cliffs with a view of the bay as the sharp wind tore at their robes.

"You can feel it too," Varys noted. "We both fled King's Landing and now we are here, biting at its heels once more."

"Do you miss it?" Tyrion asked.

"Honestly? No. I expected to but of all the cities in the realm which I have lived, King's Landing is by far the most unpleasant. It stinks of death and prayer. Lies and old blood that won't wash off the stone. Lys… Ah yes. Now those are shores that I miss." He closed his eyes, remembering the room perched over the Summer Sea with its storms and taverns hollowed directly into the cliffs. These winds did not have that fragrant scent. In fact, he could already smell King's Landing on the air.

"I don't miss it either," Tyrion admitted. "And that is not only because I nearly lost my head in the pit. It had worn thin on me before then. No… I miss Sothoryos. At least it made no pretence of peace."

Varys started to laugh. "A true lion." He trailed off before picking up a different thread entirely. "Daario has written to confirm that he holds Dragonstone in the North. There is nowhere for the Crown's fleet to flee. We will close in on them, trapping the Lannisters in their harbour – cutting off the city from the South and West. That leaves them only the North and the Dragon Gate."

"But that is currently blocked by the High Sparrow and his zealots."

"Exactly. By the time the fighting is done, the Sparrows will be dead but we'll take care to leave them alive long enough to keep the royal family trapped in the South East of King's Landing. I've seen it done before." Varys withdrew a letter from his sleeve. "From our friend Lord Emmon. Loras Tyrell has ridden past his men in search of the Tyrell army. We are not to engage each other. Olenna has answered for their loyalty to Queen Daenerys as soon as our army arrives."

"That's – that's enough to take the city."

"You sound surprised."

The revelation shook Tyrion. Varys was dangerous. He was weaving the future in spider silk. His anchor threads were laid and the spiral inside beginning to form. "We are really going to do this – overthrow a dynasty." And more than likely, end the Lannister line for good.

"Yes – we are. But taking a city and holding it are two very different things. Your sister has friends – rich friends who stand to lose everything. Conquering the city is easy. It's what comes next that I'm worried about."


A CAVE – BEYOND THE WALL

Bran covered his ears, barley able to stand. He was in a tunnel blocked by an expense of pale wood that dwarfed all that approached the Black Gate. Stretched over its surface was a hideous, withered face. Its dead, wooden eyes were open and its mouth agape in a scream that tapped straight into Bran's mind. He could feel the pain in every artery. It boiled his blood. Tore at his soul. On and on until he thought his flesh might melt.

A silver woman brushed by his shoulder. Her slender form pressed against the gate – hands stroking the Weirwood. She was dead. Or living. Between the two… Drenched in magic which caused his world to ripple in and out of focus.

Bran woke from a fever. He was laid on the ground, awkwardly folded between the hungry roots of the Weirwood. His hand had slipped, breaking his connection to the vision. With all his strength he pushed himself over, laying on his back where he could breath. Water dripped across his face. It fell like rain from the thousands of fibrous roots dangling over the ceiling. Sometimes he drank from them and in those nights his dreams were wild and uncontrolled maladies of colour.

He was being watched.

"What did you see this time?" Meera asked, kneeling in the filth beside him. She wiped her sleeve over his cheeks, clearing the black water away.

"A man without a face walking through the Haunted Forest." Bran propped himself up against a twisted root as thick as a horse.

Meera felt the cold more keenly than Bran. Her wolf skins were falling to rags. Even the cave had new ice crystals forming on the roof as though Winter was taking hold. The Three-Eyed Raven did not feel the cold either. He was part of the Weirwood. Grown into the ice. Kept alive by magic. "If we do not leave this place soon – we will never leave." She warned him.

"I can never leave, Meera… I have to learn. Understand."

"Take care, Lord Stark, who you learn from." She did not share her late brother's faith in the Raven or his whispers. Even Leaf filled her with trepidation. The Children of the Forest were not the joyful spirits they'd been reared on but malevolent fay.


Leaf perched high in the nest of roots overlooking the Three-Eyed Raven. He dreamed. The whites of his eyes sightless. His limbs twitched, itching for freedom against their cage of wood. Leaf remembered carving faces in the soft milk-wood. In her mind the Weirwoods screamed. Their blood was sickly sweet and cursed, crying while the realm of Man wandered by. The trees were always listening but they spilled their secrets too – entrapping things within their roots where they fed their prey with visions.

The trees did not speak to Leaf.

Brynden Rivers was lost in his mind, wandering a misted forest. Young, he felt strength in his bones. His silver hair flowed over his steel armour and eyes, red as the fire, picked through the corpses of Weirwoods. The trees returned him here, over and over, the Isle of Faces and all its bloody history. They screeched in agony, crying into the pools of shallow water.

Leaf heard a sharp 'snap' as one of the roots holding the Raven's arm split his bone near the shoulder. The pearl length protruded from his pink flesh, weeping into the wood. Hungry, the finest of the roots brushed over his skin, bathing themselves in the scarlet sap. Another tendril curled around his throat, lightly testing the jugular.

He approached one of the pools. Marred by slender stalks of swamp grass and layered with decayed Weirwood leaves, the surface was a dark, imperfect mirror. Brynden knelt and hovered his palm above the surface. It started to freeze beneath his hand…

Another hand smashed through the fresh ice and latched onto his. Only then did Brynden notice the face floating beneath the water. Pale and death-like, with long silver hair like his and a set of mismatched eyes. One blue like the soul of ice and the other wildfire green. The most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms. He pulled her out from the watery grave. Her beauty slipped away with the water leaving melted flesh. Sunken features and a hint of purple within her lips. All Shiera's masks washed away.

CASTLE BLACK – THE NORTH

Dacey moved to the window of the small stone room. The living quarters were exactly as she remembered, all those years ago, when Jeor had offered her sanctuary in the frozen outpost. Except the window… That was boarded over recently with planks of cracked Weirwood dug directly out of the ice. Snow gathered at the edges, permeating the cracks – inching into the warmth where it melted into a reflective sheen on the stone. The remains of a vine wove along the mortar – its leaves and blushing buds long vanished. Last time she was here it had been in bloom. A Winter rose. There were many in the far North, rambling across rune stones.

A soft knocked preceded the door groaning open.

"I still can' believe you're a-fuckin'-live..." Dacey hissed at her guest.

"The same could be said of you." Tormund replied, closing the door. He dared not encroach any further into the bear's den. They were uneasy in each other's presence. The candles quivered. "It wasn' just tha' night. I came back. Fer years. I know tha' island as well as the lands north of The Wall."

Dacey held up her hand, begging him to stop. She did not wish to hear it. "That is why I asked you here," Dacey interrupted. "We have both lived beyond The Wall. I have questions but first I need to be convinced that you and your Freefolk hoard are not here to betray the Northern lands as Wildlings so often do..." Mance she trusted but Tormund?

Tormund smirked, scratching his orange beard. "Mance told me all about you, Dacey."

Panic flickered in her eyes, hidden by the uneasy candlelight.

"My king, rest his soul, trusted me with your secret and also with his… He knew, like us, tha' survival does not care for our petty squabbles. We are all First Men in this part o' the kingdom. We fought the same wars. We're buried in the fuckin' ice along with the wolves and the ravens and the bears." Tormund kept his voice low in case the walls were listening. "I have the very same fears as you."

"...still..." She was not unmoved by his words.

"Fair enough tha' yer challenge my honour as a king but I 'ave a personal interest in remainin' true to this cause." He paused. The air freezing between them. "Same as yours." His head tilted. Eyes searching hers. "A child."

Dacey backed away until she found herself pressed against the wooden slats. "No..."

"Ay."

She shook her head slowly. "That can never be known. For either of us."

"Everyone that knows our secrets is dead 'cept you and me. I am well versed in the ways of the North." Tormund felt safe enough to step away from the door. "I always tell people I fucked a bear. They don' believe me."